Their implements are far superior to those of the Old Stone men, and are
found on the surface of our fields, or on hillsides, where they tended
their flocks, or dug their rude pit shelters. Their weapons and tools
are highly polished, and have evidently been ground on a grindstone.
They are adapted for an endless variety of uses, and are most skilfully
and beautifully fashioned. There are finely wrought arrowheads, of three
shapes--barbed, tanged and barbed, and leaf-shaped; axes, scrapers for
cleansing and preparing skins for clothing, hammer stones, wedges,
drills, borers, knives, and many other tools. In the Reading Museum may
be seen a heavy quartzite axe and chipped flint hatchet, which were
found with some charred timber on an island in the Thames, and were
evidently used for scooping out the interior of a boat from a tree with
the aid of fire. So this New Stone man knew how to make boats as well as
a vast number of other things of which we shall presently speak more
particularly. His descendants linger on in South Wales and Ireland, and
are short in stature, dark in complexion, and narrow-skulled, like their
forefathers a few thousand years ago.

[Illustration: NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE IMPLEMENTS]

Another wave of invaders swept over our land, and overcame the
long-headed Neolithic race. These were the Celtic people, taller and
stronger than their predecessors, and distinguished by their fair hair
and rounded skulls. From the shape of their heads they are called
Brachycephalic, and are believed to have belonged to the original Aryan
race, whose birthplace was Southern Asia. At some remote period this
wave of invaders poured over Europe and Asia, and has left traces behind
it in the languages of all Indo-European nations.

Their weapons were made of bronze, although they still used polished